Will Nouvel's new 54th Street tower tower over Cesar Pelli's 1985 Museum Tower behind it on West 53rd?

Peter Slatin
DESIGN | NYC 06 19 07

After a fierce and very hush-hush competition among five world-leading
architects, France's Jean Nouvel has been chosen to design a new 60-plus story tower
in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. To rise next to – and be joined with - the
Museum of Modern Art's sleek, serene and recently expanded home on West 54th Street, the
new building will contain 75,000 square feet of additional exhibition space for the museum. Sources say it will also contain speculative office space and – bien sur –
luxury condominiums.

The developer is Houston-based Hines Interests in partnership with Whitehall Street, the
Goldman Sachs group, which earlier this year won the right to acquire and develop the 17,000
-square-foot, block-through parcel. It stands immediately west of MoMA and was previously occupied by the historic City Athletic Club on West 54th Street; the
club closed in 2002 and was acquired by the museum out of bankruptcy.

MoMA's press office referred calls to Hines, where a spokeswoman said that it was "too early"
to say anything. But sources familiar with the design competition and the project confirmed
the selection of Nouvel. Whitehall also declined to comment.

One challenge in going public with the selection may be the fast-changing world of finance.
Earlier this year the developers were seeking more than $125 million in debt financing for the
project, a figure that sources say could rise by an additional $100-plus million, depending on
potential zoning variances for the site. But at the time, even though Manhattan's high-end
condo market had begun to rebound from a stall in the last half of 2006, at least one lender
balked at the borrowers' willingness to pay more than $750 a buildable, or FAR, square foot
for the site.

Another issue that may be delaying an announcement: whether the new
MoMA galleries – which will not have their own entrance but will simply be extensions of the
existing galleries, will be designed by Nouvel or by the Yoshio Taniguchi, the Japanese
architect who designed MoMA's renovation and expansion, which opened in 2005. Sources
say that it's most likely that it will be Taniguchi who designs the new exhibit halls, which will
occupy the first six floors of the building.

There is also the question of the direct involvement of Nouvel himself; the architect has been
known to be less than conspicuous at some of his projects, and no doubt Hines wants to be
sure that it gets Nouvel when it hires Nouvel.

MoMA has been pressed to add new space ever since the renovation opened, following
complaints from many quarters that the new galleries were lacking in grace and space and
had lost some important qualities following the museum's reopening.

The new building is the 62-year-old Nouvel's third, largest and most central Manhattan
commission. His first New York building, 40 Mercer Street in SoHo, which was also developed
by Hines and Whitehal, along with developer Andre Balasz, is nearly complete. A second, 20-
story building is in development by Alf Naman and Cape Advisors at Eleventh Avenue and 19th
Street, across from Frank O. Gehry's (and Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg's)
luminescent InterActive Center, opened earlier this year.

Nouvel has been selected over submissions by Diller Scofidio + Renfro;
Morphosis; Reiser and Umamoto; and Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners. Any one of these
architects would doubtless have added something striking to the city's skyline, which is
quickly developing nodes of exciting new residential architecture. Tribeca has
Philip Johnson's Urban Glass House and a small building by Winka Dubbeldam; Chelsea has the
burgeoning, adventurous High Line corridor anchored by the IAC; and Midtown has 53rd and
54th Streets, where more commercial offerings include Norman Foster's anticipated Shangri-
La Hotel and condos for RFR Holdings just a few blocks east of MoMA on 53rd Street. And
there is of course Cesar Pelli's original Museum Tower, partly behind and even adjacent to the
new tower site, on West 53rd Street.

Still, the path from a star architect's selection to a built project will be a tricky one for Hines
and for MoMA and its brand new chair, Jerry Speyer. There are complex air rights questions
including transfers from historic properties nearby; one package has already been assembled
by MoMA and is being transferred to Hines along with the site. However, further air rights are
yet to be nailed down and delivered, and the ability to do so will certainly affect the outcome
of the deal, its size, and its price.

Then, of course, there is the market, which Hines can only hope will show the same durability
and value as MoMA's core collection of modern masters.

A view of the vacant lot MoMA is selling to Hines, an international real estate developer based in Houston.

Dale

Jun 26, 2007 7:57 PM

My gosh! This will be a sliver.

NYguy

Jun 26, 2007 9:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dale
(Post 2919928)

My gosh! This will be a sliver.

It will be a sliver, but it will be a thru-block, like many of Manhattan's residentials and even some office towers.

Dale

Jun 26, 2007 9:44 PM

800-footer or more, perhaps ?

Scruffy

Jun 26, 2007 11:57 PM

i did enjoy when they used that lot for outdoor events, but this is good too

CGII

Jun 27, 2007 12:50 AM

Jean Nouvel=good choice.

GFSNYC

Jun 27, 2007 1:55 AM

Funny, where this is located, an 800ft tower would barely break the midtown skyline. No matter, a Nouvel tower is totally welcome! His work has been only excellent, and will add to some grand and elegant architecture that is going up in midtown. I am expecting something similar to Foster's tower next to the Seagram building.

Dale

Jun 27, 2007 2:15 AM

I'm really looking forward to this rendering.

NewYorkYankee

Jun 27, 2007 11:11 AM

Not everything has to break the skyline for it to be a welcome addition. Buildings like these serve the function of filling in the gaps between the buildings. It makes the skyline look that much more whole.

Definetly looking forward to this puppy. ;)

NYguy

Jun 27, 2007 1:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NewYorkYankee
(Post 2921127)

Not everything has to break the skyline for it to be a welcome addition. Buildings like these serve the function of filling in the gaps between the buildings. It makes the skyline look that much more whole.

The Hearst Tower is a perfect example of this. It's not a major building by Manhattan standards, but a beauty nonetheless. How we lived without it for so long, I don't know...:yes:

fioco

Jun 27, 2007 4:28 PM

It's reasonable to hold high hopes for this towers. Nouvel rarely disappoints and he has yet to build a truly tall tower in New York (his HighLine project was canceled but then we got his Machine Bldg; it's really, really hard to complain.)

Because MOMA will use the base for additional gallery space, this tower (even more so than the Museum Tower) will serve as an extension of the museum and a sentinel for MOMA along the Fifth Avenue skyline. New background eye-candy for long shots of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

With this expansion of MOMA I'm a bit more hopeful that perhaps MOMA will do something in LIC (Long Island City). PS 1 artspace is there as well as the MOMA warehouse. During the museum construction, MOMA Queens exceded expectations. Strong cultural anchors would really help LIC.

MOMA + Nouvel = masterpiece for NYC.

NYguy

Jun 27, 2007 4:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fioco
(Post 2921408)

MOMA + Nouvel = masterpiece for NYC.

Let's hope so...:tup:

NYguy

Sep 11, 2007 1:07 AM

Could be a rendering coming soon.
Blurb from an article in the NY Times...

New Yorkers will see several major nonmuseum projects getting under way this season, and these could bring about the biggest shift in decades in the city’s physical identity.

The most startling is a $14 billion plan by the developers Stephen M. Ross and Steven Roth to rebuild a swath of Midtown that includes Madison Square Garden, Pennsylvania Station and the James A. Farley post office. The plan is to be released in the fall, and hanging in the balance is the fate of the old Penn Station.

Another huge project is the $4 billion Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, and Frank Gehry will soon unveil his redesign of its first phase, so it will soon become clear whether Brooklyn will receive a dazzling 21st-century version of Rockefeller Center or a conventional retail-entertainment-sports complex inside a pretty architectural wrapper.

Meanwhile take a minute to look up. A new Jean Nouvel tower in midtown. A Richard Meier apartment block in Brooklyn. The relentless march of luxury residential towers never ceases to redefine the city skyline.

Secrecy shrouds Mr. Nouvel's planned MoMA tower.....Mr. Nouvel hinted at something novel: "I'm for a specific architecture, and I'm opposed to a global or generic architecture, especially for skyscrapers. A tower for me is akin to what the steeples of cathedrals were before. And each time, from this standpoint, you have to create a point of identity."

Fabb

Nov 7, 2007 2:30 PM

Nouvel is in charge of the design ?
Be very afraid...

scalziand

Nov 7, 2007 5:33 PM

Sounds like it definitely wont be a generic design...

samoen313

Nov 7, 2007 7:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fabb
(Post 3151330)

Nouvel is in charge of the design ?
Be very afraid...

why? because almost all of his recent high-rise proposals have been utter abominations? oh, wait . . .

(for those curious for the hit-and-miss-ers most recent proposals, see his rejected gazprom proposal in st. petersburg or his tour signal proposal in paris. blech.)